


A Bunch of Meddling Kids

by alocalband



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alive Laura Hale, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Hunter Allison, Hunter Stiles Stilinski, M/M, hunter lydia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-09
Updated: 2015-07-09
Packaged: 2018-04-08 09:53:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4300260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alocalband/pseuds/alocalband
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>They’ve got it down to a science now, after stumbling their way into the supernatural as naïve fourteen-year-olds.</i>
</p><p>(or, the one where Stiles, Allison and Lydia are a trio of upstart supernatural hunters whose newest mystery involves whatever's about to go down at the old Hale place)</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Bunch of Meddling Kids

**Author's Note:**

> Based on a tumblr prompt. I'm currently working on a followup story, and am considering turning this into a series :)

Stiles likes to hum the theme song to _Scooby Doo_ whenever they get a new assignment. He calls the Jeep “the mystery machine” and constantly declares dibs on being the Velma of the group.

“We are  _not_  just a bunch of ‘meddling kids,’ Stiles,” Lydia huffs, annoyed, while Allison smirks in amusement from where she’s taking weapons inventory in the corner.

Stiles laughs and doesn’t take his eyes off his laptop screen, fingers never pausing in their quick movements over the keys. “Uh, we really kinda are, Lyds.”

Lydia rolls her eyes, tosses her hair over her shoulder haughtily, and continues drawing in her sketchbook as if she didn’t hear him. “And if we were, you’d be Shaggy.”

Stiles stops typing long enough to flip her off for that one. Allison giggles at them and starts sharpening her knives.

They’ve got it down to a science now, after stumbling their way into the supernatural as naïve fourteen-year-olds. Three years and a billion near-deaths later, they know their shit.

Lydia is the brains. Allison is the brawn. And Stiles is– Well, usually the bait. He squawks indignantly whenever Lydia puts it in those terms, but he knows she doesn’t really mean it. None of this would work as smoothly as it does without each of their individual skill sets. Lydia uses her Banshee powers to point them in the right direction, Stiles makes the plans and figures out what the evidence gathered will eventually add up to, and Allison makes sure they all don’t die.

The basement of Allison’s house is their war room. Her dad checks in on them from time to time, but he trusts his daughter to do what she was raised to do, and is usually too busy with his own hunts to pay them much mind. Is sometimes gone for weeks at a time on the trail of whatever newest big bad has been reported to him through his network of other hunters.

One entire wall of the basement is now covered in crime scene photos, newspaper clippings, scribbled notes, and long lines of red string connecting it all. The wall to its left looks like something out of a mad scientist’s laboratory, with a suspicious substance forever letting off the occasional flare of purple fireworks no matter how many times Stiles has tried to will it to chill out and get back in its container. The other two walls are covered in weapons and ammunition, with Lydia’s well worn painting easel arranged strategically in front of the less legal items.

Stiles sighs and runs a hand through his hair. “I’m not getting anything on any recent house fires, Lydia. Nothing that could’ve killed anybody, at any rate. You sure there was a body count?”

Lydia hums noncommittally, puts a finishing touch on her drawing, and then holds it back to look at it as if for the first time. “I think that the fire might have happened a long time ago. Does this place look familiar to anyone?” She turns the sketchbook around to reveal a picture of a blackened ruin of a house surrounded by trees.

“Oh shit, I know exactly where that is!” Stiles jumps up and nearly sends his laptop flying across the room in the process. But neither of the girls pay much mind to his gracelessness anymore. “The old Hale place, out on the preserve. Burned down, like, seven or eight years ago, I think? Killed at least ten people.”

Allison frowns and goes to Lydia’s side to get a better look. “Why would you be having visions of deaths that happened almost a decade ago?”

It’s a damn good question and none of them have an answer to it.

They decide to go investigate after school the following day. But, because Stiles is Stiles, he goes on his own that night to take a look.

He can’t sleep and the curiosity is killing him and it’s not like he goes in unprepared, okay? He’s not a  _complete_  idiot. He loads up on mistletoe and mountain ash, a borrowed crossbow and his trusty baseball bat, the one with the runes carved into the base that keep the whole thing from exploding on impact if he hits something supernaturally enhanced (learned that lesson the hard way).

All the same, Stiles still feels unnervingly like he’s starring as victim number one in a bad slasher film as he picks his way across the threshold of the charred remains of what used to be the Hale family mansion.

“ _Scooby Dooby Do, where are you?_ ” he whispers to himself, shining his phone’s flashlight function around at all the cobwebs and pieces of blackened lumber.

Something upstairs with wings suddenly takes flight and startles him into a near heart attack that has him tripping over god knows what and landing on the floor in a heap. No matter how many serial killing monsters of the week Stiles helps take down, he’s just never going to look nearly as badass as he knows he is. He’s mostly made his peace with that.

“This is private property,” a voice echoes off the crumbling walls from somewhere in the shadows that Stiles can’t see.

He subtly reaches for the pouch in his back pocket while snorting a laugh. “I think your info’s out of date, buddy. Didn’t you hear? This is _county_  property. Demolition crew should be by within the week.”

An incensed roar is all the response he gets, and Stiles knows what that sound means. That sound means very angry werewolf. Before he’s even back on his feet he’s throwing up a handful of mountain ash into the air and  _hoping_.

Thank god mountain ash basically works by clapping your hands real hard and thinking  _I believe_  at it, because the stuff immediately forms a protective circle around Stiles just as a pair of glowing blue eyes find their way to him.

Of course, Stiles’ phone is just out of reach outside of that circle due to his fall. As is the baseball bat. And the crossbow is sitting on the passenger seat back in the Jeep. But okay, all good here, Stiles has totally handled bigger evils than a lone werewolf with nothing more than his wits and a propensity for sarcasm. He’s got this.

“Cute trick with the mountain ash,” the voice tells him, this time from a whole hell of a lot closer. “Most hunters don’t like to muddy the waters with that kind of magic.”

Stiles squints into the shadows at the man, but it’s too dark to make out more than the still glowing eyes and the outline of a rather impressive physique. “What? Hunter? Look at me, dude. I’m just a scrawny, defenseless kid.”

“Who happens to be working with the Argents. I can smell them all over you.”

“Yeah, okay, you caught me.” Stiles raises his hands in the air and smirks. “But I’m not your average shmuck with a hard on for putting down anything overly furry and fangy, alright? I may be a hunter of shit that goes bump in the night, but I’m, like, the new and improved model. New code, new outlook on life. We even have a Facebook group.”

The werewolf lifts a hand up to casually reveal a threatening set of claws.

Stiles gulps. “Seriously. We are not the ‘shoot first ask questions never’ types anymore. Well, I mean, sometimes Allison is. But she’s always very apologetic afterward.”

“Convincing,” the guy says, unimpressed, stepping forward into a patch of moonlight.

Stiles flails and almost lands back on his ass again as he finally gets a good look at the guy’s face. And only half because that face is stupidly attractive. The other half is because it’s a stupidly attractive face that he  _recognizes_.

“Dude, you’re Derek Hale! Oh my god, you guys were werewolves? Did not see that one coming. Though Cora always was freakishly good a T-ball.”

Derek’s eyes flash and Stiles clicks his jaw shut, mentally reprimanding himself for bringing up the guy’s  _very dead family_  while standing in  _the place where they died_. Highly uncool.

“Don’t pretend you didn’t already know,” Derek sneers. “You work with the  _Argents_.”

“I work with  _Allison and Chris_. Both of whom like to play their cards pretty close to the vest about basically everything.  _Especially_  if it has to do with whatever the rest of their family has been up to.”

“You’re lying.”

“Really? Listen to my heart.  _I didn’t know_.”

Derek studies him carefully for a long, quiet moment, and Stiles has to bite down on the insides of his cheeks to keep from fidgeting. At last, Derek says, soft and careful and with a practiced kind of numbness, “We are standing in a graveyard right now because of the Argents. You’re really going to try to tell me that one of their own wouldn’t brag about that fact at every given opportunity?”

Stiles heaves a heavy sigh and goes for broke. He could wait this confrontation out from inside his circle, but Derek looks like just the kind of secretly smart and not-so-secretly half-crazy that would eventually figure out that mountain ash doesn’t keep out things like bullets and thrown coffee tables.

“Look, Allison’s mom, she got turned a few years ago. Rather than kill herself, they decided to make a break for it. Get away from head honcho douchenozzle Gerard. Except that Allison’s aunt, Kate,” Stiles doesn’t miss Derek’s flinch at the name, “killed her before they got a chance. That kind of thing tends to sever familial ties pretty thoroughly. So no, they’re not your usual brand of Argents and no, I really didn’t know you guys were werewolves. Or that the fire was– Are you saying it was intentional? Jesus, but there were kids in there.”

Derek’s eyebrows furrow, like he’s trying to figure Stiles out and suddenly can’t come up with a working baseline to judge him by. He opens his mouth, either to question or to argue, but stops short just as a howl erupts from outside. It’s loud and powerful enough that it sends a primal shiver down Stiles’ spine.

Somewhere beneath Derek’s carefully constructed, cocksure mask an emotion flickers that Stiles recognizes immediately. If only because he’s experienced it enough himself. Terror.

He makes a snap decision then that’s probably going to end about as well as every other adrenaline-induced snap decision he’s ever made has, and hunches over to displace a small section of the mountain ash with a flick of both wrists. “Get in the circle.”

Derek jerks his gaze back to Stiles and he actually looks startled. The first momentarily unguarded expression Stiles has witnessed from him. “What? Why would you–”

“Just get in the damn circle, dumbass, before whatever that thing is gets here.”

Another howl echoes through the house, closer now and all the more chilling for it.

Derek steps forward warily and then stops. His eyes very deliberately light up electric blue again and he says, like a challenge, “Do you know what blue eyes mean for a werewolf?”

Stiles raises his chin defiantly and meets Derek’s stare head on. “I do.”

They hold like that for another tense second. And then Derek crosses the barrier to stand beside Stiles, close enough that Stiles can feel the body heat radiating off of him.

Stiles quickly moves the mountain ash to close the circle again just as another man stalks in through the front door like he owns the place. “Ah, Derek. You’re certainly looking well, nephew. Sadly, you’re not the Hale I was hoping to greet.”

Derek tenses, a hot line of tension pressed against Stiles’ side. “Which is exactly why I came. You want Laura, you’ll have to go through me first.”

The man saunters forward a couple steps and looks like he’d happily flay them both and consider it a favor to them. “Oh Derek,” he sighs with a condescending shake of his head. “Martyrdom is rarely as noble as it is wasteful. Tell me, does she even know you’re here right now? Does anyone? Is there a single soul in a thousand miles who will care if you live or die tonight?”

Stiles turns his head to cock an eyebrow at Derek. “Is this guy for real?”

Derek ignores him, his body held so taught it’s a wonder it doesn’t shatter. “Better me than her.”

“Sacrificing yourself yet again. And all because, what, she’s your only pack left? Because she’s your alpha?”

“Because power like hers should never fall into the hands of people like you.”

The man grins and flashes his eyes, a startling, bloody, alpha red. “You think I want her for her status? I’ve already killed a whole pack of alphas, why would I waste my time on Talia’s barely surviving successor? What I want from Laura is a little more…  _personal_  in nature.”

Stiles makes a face. “Ew, dude. She’s your niece.”

For the first time, the man turns his head to acknowledge Stiles’ presence, giving him a quick once over that makes Stiles’ skin crawl. “Perhaps I’ll begin the proceedings tonight with your new friend here, Derek. I’ll even make you a deal. The quicker you tell me what I want to know, the quicker his death will be.”

“ _Or_ ,” Stiles offers, “we could  _not_ do that, and I’ll just make myself scarce while you two deal with your weird family drama on your own.”

“I wonder if you’ll be nearly this mouthy when I’m–“

An arrow in his shoulder cuts him off, and he stumbles back a step with the shock of it. The second arrow lodges itself in his gut, causing him to roar and glance around for the source of the attack, but to no avail.

The alpha werewolf manages to mostly avoid the third arrow as it whizzes by his head, cutting a sharp line across his cheek that doesn’t immediately heal, but rather erupts in tiny black tendrils sprawling out across his face. He doesn’t bother sticking around for more, halfway shifted now into some kind of nightmare of a wolf-like beast as he hightails it out of the place.

Lydia strolls in a couple seconds later, waving Stiles’ crossbow at him. “Next time you bother to come armed, maybe don’t leave it in the car.”

“I had the bat!” he argues, indignant.

“What you had was the good fortune to be acquainted with myself and Allison. She’s hunting that thing down as we speak, by the way.”

Stiles briefly buries his face in his hands. “Christ, were you guys  _following me?_ ”

“Didn’t have to. You’re just that predictable.” She examines her cuticles in a bored sort of fashion, and then eyes their surroundings with obvious disdain, before finally settling her gaze on Derek. “Who’s your boyfriend?”

Stiles rolls his eyes. “Lydia Martin, may I introduce you to the infamous Derek Hale. Long time werewolf with a serious case of resting murder face, but underneath it all a heart of gold.” Stiles smacks a hand against Derek’s rock hard chest. “And probably an eight-pack. Wow.”

Derek bats his hand away aggressively and snarls. “Let me out of here.”

Lydia smirks. “Heart of gold, huh?”

“Well, he hasn’t eaten me yet,” Stiles shrugs.

“That does take a particular kind of altruism.”

Stiles bends down and breaks the mountain ash line, effectively releasing Derek from its confines, just as Allison skids to a halt in front of them. She’s got her bow in one hand and a still smoking gun in the other. “He got away.”

“Damn. Recoup and regroup?” Stiles retrieves his cell phone and his bat, tracking Derek’s movements as subtly as he can manage. The guy looks shaken, but also like he’s about to let the claws come back out if either of the girls so much as breathes in his direction.

“ _After_ at  _least_  six hours of uninterrupted sleep,” Lydia warns, pointing a finger in Stiles’ face.

Allison shoves a lock of hair back with her forearm. “I have a history test in the morning. If we can actually pretend to be normal, all-American teenagers until after that, I will seriously bake you two a cake.”

“Promises, promises,” Stiles teases.

“What about him?” Allison waves her gun at Derek. Derek’s eyes flash.

“Nah, he’s cool. You are cool, right?” Stiles catches Derek’s gaze and holds it for a long moment, trying to understand what’s behind the ferocity. At last, Derek nods his head slowly down and up, just once, eyes never leaving Stiles’.

Stiles swallows and hastily looks away.

Lydia leads the way outside to their cars, but Stiles notices at the last possible second that Derek isn’t joining them. Not that he really expected the guy to, but he also didn’t expect Derek to start dragging a cobwebbed couch into a corner and fluffing up the cushions.

Stiles stops short. “Oh my god, are you gonna spend the night in this death trap?”

The whole world basically freezes then so that everyone has a chance to adequately glare at Stiles. Derek looks positively murderous.  _More_  murderous, anyway.

Stiles backpedals and raises his hands in surrender. “Okay, poor choice of words. But seriously. Things like Central Air and, you know,  _ceilings_  aside, this place is completely indefensible. Not only is it vulnerable to attack from literally  _every side_ , but Peter  _knows_  it. You’re basically setting up camp on his home turf.”

“It’s also  _my_  home.”

“Which I get, I do, but maybe for the sake of survival you could relocate to, I don’t know,  _my_ home for a few hours?”

Lydia raises an incredulous eyebrow. “Really, Stiles?”

“It’s the most safeguarded place in the whole city, you know that, Lyds. And if that psycho alpha shithead really has his sights set on killing Derek, then Derek should probably hide out in a place where supernatural predators can’t get to him in his sleep.”

“Supernatural predators other than myself, you mean.” Derek gives him a flat look.

Stiles points his baseball bat at the guy. “Don’t get cute. You know I’m right.”

“What I know is that you’re a  _hunter_  who hasn’t even bothered to give me his name yet.”

Stiles glances at the girls for backup, but they both clearly think he’s even more insane than Derek does. “Look, you’ve already trusted my impulsive decision making skills once tonight, and ended up a lot more alive than not because of it. Trust me again now. Let me keep you alive a little longer.” Lydia’s gaze has gone suspiciously  _knowing_  now, but fuck it. “And it’s Stiles, by the way. My name, I mean.”

The ghost of some emotion Stiles can’t interpret crosses Derek’s face for a split second. And then he’s huffing in exasperation while motioning with an overly sarcastic wave of his arms for Stiles to lead the way.

The car ride home is… awkward. And silent. Stiles keeps opening his mouth to fill that silence, but thinks better of it every time.

Once they get to his house, Stiles tiptoes up the stairs to his bedroom so that his dad doesn’t wake. As soon as he gets there he makes sure to palm the main warding sigil by the bookcase and then make a beeline for the slightly open window to close it.

He turns back around just in time to watch Derek stalk forward, directly into Stiles’ personal space, and then push even further so that they’re chest to chest and the side of the window frame digs hard into Stiles’ back. “ _More_  mountain ash?”

“One of many things this house is protected by to keep the big bads from getting in.”

“Or from getting out. That’s twice tonight I’ve let you hold me prisoner.”

“And twice tonight I’ve given you the opportunity to rip my throat out.” Stiles boldly smacks Derek’s shoulder with the back of his hand, not even sure at this point how much of his bravado is real or faked. “This goes both ways, buddy, and you know it.”

Derek considers him for a moment, his gaze as hard and impenetrable as ever, but then concedes the point by backing up a step.

It’s not until several minutes later, when Stiles is staring up at his bedroom ceiling in the dark, listening to Derek’s steady breathing from the floor, and questioning if he’s finally gone off the deep end to have willingly put himself in this position, that Derek asks the obvious. “Why are you doing this?”

Stiles has no idea how to answer. He sighs. “Why are you letting me?”

Derek doesn’t say anything else after that. And he’s gone by the time Stiles wakes up.

Stiles showers and has breakfast with his dad. He goes to school and argues with Finstock and pretends his thoughts aren’t completely preoccupied with a certain mysterious werewolf the entire time. No one calls him on it until they’re sitting down for lunch at their usual table at the far end of the quad, where the only students close enough to possibly overhear them are the Ultimate Frisbee players on the lawn.

“I’ve never known you to take in strays,” Lydia says idly as she picks at her salad.

“I was protecting an investment. He could be useful.”

Allison scowls at her ham and cheese and then swaps it for a passing student’s turkey club without them even noticing. She gives Lydia a commiserating look and then sets her doe eyes on Stiles. “Just be careful, alright? I’m going to try to track the alpha again tonight, but…”

“But that doesn’t mean other potential threats should be ignored,” Lydia finishes, wielding her fork at Stiles like a weapon. “ _Or_  invited home for sleepovers.”

Stiles rolls his eyes. “Your concern for my virtue is touching, Lyds. Really. But tall, dark and broody is already in the wind, okay? He could be anywhere by now. All I know is that the alpha wanted his sister for something, but I don’t think Derek knew what that was.”

“Maybe we should find his sister then?”

“I’ll try to get my hands on the official file on the fire when I bring my dad dinner tonight, but it probably won’t tell us much. Derek seemed to think it was caused by hunters, but I’m pretty sure I remember that they ruled out arson. Just faulty wiring or something.”

“But if they were werewolves, faulty wiring wouldn’t keep them trapped inside long enough to kill them.”

Allison frowns and pushes her lunch aside, untouched. “If hunters did this, then we shouldn’t go in blind. I don’t want to unwittingly finish whatever job they started.”

Lydia places a careful hand over Allison’s on the table and squeezes gently. Stiles clears his throat awkwardly and dives into his fruit cup with abandon.

Stiles leaves the sheriff’s station just after sunset with a bulky file folder marked “confidential” tucked beneath his hoodie, and a spring in his step at the prospect of diving into this particular puzzle. He hasn’t been this obsessed with figuring out a mystery since that time it looked like Harris might be connected with the virgin sacrifices two years ago.

Allison’s still reporting in by text every fifteen minutes, as is their standard mode of operation whenever she’s on the prowl around town in search of the newest evil villain. And Lydia’s currently dragging the friendly neighborhood former druid, Alan Deaton, to the nemeton with her to reinforce the wards they all put on it back when they first discovered exactly the kind of fuckery it liked to draw into town if left unchecked. Which means Stiles is on research duty this time.

He’s expecting a long night of poring over police reports and trawling the darkest recesses of google until he either passes out on the coffee machine or his alarm for school goes off. What he is not expecting is to find Derek Hale bleeding out on his front porch.

“Oh my god, get inside before someone calls my dad!”

“ _I was trying to_ ,” Derek forces out through gritted teeth from where he’s heaped on the welcome mat. One arm is hanging a little too loosely at his side, and the other is wrapped around his midsection to act as pretty much the only thing keeping his intestines from falling into his lap. Stiles may vomit.

“Jesus Christ, man. Why aren’t you healing?”

Derek manages to shakes his head slightly, his breathing shallow, his words barely discernible as speech versus painful sounding grunts. “Inflicted by an alpha. Takes longer.”

Great. Stiles glances around for potential eyewitnesses, pauses briefly to mourn the fate of the hoodie he’s wearing, and then hefts Derek up to drag him inside.

The next hour is exactly as awful as Stiles knew it would be. There’s a  _lot_  of blood. His hoodie  _and_ his jeans both get sacrificed to the cause. And he spends twenty minutes scrubbing stains off the floor of the bathroom, while Derek attempts to sleep it off in Stiles’ bed,  _despite_  Stiles’ insistence that the bedroom floor looked awfully inviting this evening.

There’s no way Stiles is researching anything after this shitshow. There’s also no way he’s getting kicked out of his own bed, so he pulls on some sweatpants and crawls onto what narrow space is left. Derek looks like he’s already asleep, so he figures there’s only a thirty percent chance of getting clawed for it.

He sits up against the headboard, Derek’s back–bare save for all the bandages–pressed against his thigh, and he grabs his reading for English in an attempt to remind himself that when all is said and done he’s still just a regular seventeen-year-old. The death and mayhem parts don’t have to be the biggest parts of who he is. They don’t have to be _all_  of who he is.

Sometimes he even believes that.

Stiles doesn’t get more than a paragraph in, however, before a quiet huff of breath draws his attention away. “His name is Peter,” Derek says softly on another exhale, his eyes still closed.

Stiles hesitates, not wanting to screw up whatever’s got Derek actually talking to him. “He’s your uncle, right? I thought that would’ve made him part of your pack.”

“He’s been in a coma since the fire. We felt the bond with him break back then, as if he’d died with the rest of them. In a way I guess he did.”

Stiles draws in a deep breath. “What exactly is going on, Derek?

Derek resolutely keeps his eyes closed and doesn’t move a single muscle. “I thought he was trying to lure Laura here to kill her, so I came in her place, before she could find out. I didn’t know he was already an alpha.”

“Which means he wants to lure her here for some other reason?”

“He said when we were fighting– He said… that it was something our mother took from him.”

“But you don’t know what that could be.”

“No. Everything my mother had was lost in the fire along with her. She… There’s nothing left.” Derek’s breath hitches slightly, but then evens back out into the perfect façade of  _absolutely fine_. Stiles has had enough personal experience with that particular mask to know it on sight.

Stiles lifts up one hand, thinks better of it for a second when it’s halfway to its destination, but then carefully lowers it down onto the top of Derek’s head anyway. He slowly scratches his fingers through the ruffled dark hair, the way he remembers his mom used to whenever he was sick or upset.

Derek goes tense, and Stiles freezes, knowing it’s as likely as not that he’s going to get punched in the face for this.

Instead, after a few seconds of held breaths, Derek’s whole body shudders and he lets out a soft sigh, burrowing his face further into the pillow and pushing his back a little more firmly into Stiles’ leg.

So Stiles moves his fingers along Derek’s scalp again, the hair softer than he imagined it as it sweeps along his palm and wrist, and he continues the motion until well after Derek’s fallen asleep.

In the morning, Derek calls his sister.

He picks at the bandages around his ribs as he waits for her to answer, his expression carefully blank. Whatever Laura’s very loud response to Derek’s muttered greeting of, “Hey, Laur,” has him flinching away from the phone and then making a face like he’s eating a lemon while she continues to chew him out.

Stiles bites back laughter, but Derek stills cuffs him upside the head when he notices.

“Verdict?” Stiles asks once Derek hangs up, pulling on a clean shirt and tossing a spare one at the half-naked werewolf still sitting on his bed. How on earth is this his life?

“She thinks I’m a self-sacrificing idiot,” Derek rolls his eyes, though there’s a fondness in his slightly quirked lips. “But that’s not exactly news.”

Stiles struggles not to let a traitorous smile of his own slip past at the sight, if only because he suspects it would be equally as fond and he cannot deal with that shit right now. “Does she know what Peter might want from her?”

“She has an idea. There’s a family memorial on the preserve near the old house that was partially dug up.”

“…Okay?”

“There weren’t any bodies to bury, though. It’s just a rock with names carved onto it. The only things that didn’t turn to ashes in the fire were teeth and claws, and we kept those with us.”

“As you do,” Stiles nods and then makes a face. “Alright, morbid, but I’m with ya. Unless you’re telling me Peter is just desperate to get his hands on his dead family’s molars, because that would be a new one even for me.”

“An alpha werewolf’s claws are powerful. They can create false memories or remove real ones. Laura thinks Peter might have had the latter done to him and that he wants our mom’s claws to try to retrieve what he doesn’t remember.”

“I’m gonna assume that if your mom felt compelled to take Peter’s memories from him then there was a damn good reason for it.”

“It stands to reason.”

“Is Laura coming here?”

“Only if she has to. Better to keep her as far away from Peter as possible until we know for sure what he wants.” Derek peels away one side of the gauze on his shoulder and frowns at the old blood crusted over new skin.

Stiles distracts himself from the skin part by focusing on the grossness factor. “First order of business: you definitely need a shower, dude. Towels are in the hall closet, and I think there’s a spare toothbrush in the bottom drawer.”

Derek rises from the bed gingerly and makes for the bedroom door. Stiles calls Lydia and Allison in the mean time to fill them in and coordinate battle plans.

Based on her rounds last night, Allison is fairly certain that Peter’s sticking close to the preserve for now. “You think Derek would be up for playing bait?”

Stiles snorts. “I think we’d have to chain the guy up to  _stop_  him from playing bait, honestly.”

“Keep your fantasies to yourself, Stiles,” Lydia drawls, and Allison laughs. Stiles pulls the phone away from his ear so he can stick his tongue out at it, nevermind that no one can see it but him. Spending all his time with two girls who could easily kill him with their pinkies and who constantly like to gang up on him has really done wonders for his self-esteem.

Derek returns from his shower, barefoot, his hair still wet, dressed in his own, only-slightly-stained jeans and Stiles’ threadbare T-shirt pulled obscenely tight across his broad chest. He stands in the middle of Stiles’ room looking like something straight out of the beginning of a high end porno, nodding along as Stiles fidgets in his desk chair and explains the plan for taking down Peter.

“But not until  _after school_ , huh?” Derek smirks.

Stiles glances at his alarm clock. He’s gonna miss first period, but a tardy is better than an absence. If he racks up one more of those this semester he’s gonna be seeing some detention time. “Yeah, sorry. Perils of still clinging to the pipe dream of finally getting out of this town and going to a decent college.”

He stands and grabs his backpack, fiddling with the straps in an effort not to look directly at Derek as he stumbles his way through his next words. “Thank you for, uh, trusting me, by the way.”

Derek’s brow furrows inward. “I thought we went over this. I let you cage me; you let me near enough to kill you. Even footing.”

“It wasn’t so ‘even’ last night when you were bleeding out on my doorstep, though.” Derek ducks his head and looks at his hands. Stiles shifts his weight from foot to foot, feeling even more awkward than usual. “But, anyway, that’s not what I was– Thank you for trusting me with the information about Peter and Laura. And about your mom. I didn’t want you to think that I take any of that for granted.”

Derek lifts his head back up and eyes him steadily, something behind the look desperately fragile, but Stiles can’t define exactly what it is. It makes Stiles’ gut twist though, and his heartbeat ratchet up a notch. “I don’t,” Derek says, solemn.

Stiles swallows thickly. “Okay, well, uh. Right. So. You can hang out here while I’m gone if you want. Just make sure to avoid my dad. We’ll head out around dinner time to meet up with Allison and Lydia.” He forces a reassuring smile, and then darts quickly past Derek and down the stairs, hoping his face isn’t nearly as red as it suddenly feels.

That night, Peter Hale dies in as dramatic a fashion as he seemed inclined to live. That is, with one of Allison’s arrows lodged in his right eye socket, one of Lydia’s Molotov Cocktails ablaze at his feet, and Stiles’ neck gripped tightly in his lupine fists.

Stiles would like to reiterate, for the record, that he actually does know what he’s doing and has taken out his fair share of big bads just as well as Allison and Lydia have. This is just an off week for him, okay?

The problem is Derek. The problem is that Stiles is used to fighting alongside people who he knows intrinsically can handle themselves when push comes to shove and that he doesn’t have to look out for in the mayhem. And yes, granted, Derek is a damn werewolf, and so intellectually Stiles realizes that the guy is not exactly defenseless, he  _does know that_ , it’s just…

It’s just that apparently the second it looks like Derek’s life is in danger, Stiles loses all higher brain function and has to jump in the way of the potential threat headfirst.

Thankfully, Peter is already pretty much taken care of by then, and Derek swoops in to pry his fists off of Stiles almost as soon as they latch onto him.

Derek makes to strike at Peter like a reflex as his other arm holds Stiles away from the dying beast. But Stiles grips a tight hold of his shirtsleeve to stop him. Derek meets his eyes, brows drawn in, and shakes his head in confusion. “Why are you– You know what blue eyes mean for a–”

“They mean whatever you let them mean. Plus your sister will totally kick your ass for it.”

One side of Derek’s lips quirk up, and Stiles knows he’s won, even if his body doesn’t feel like it right now, still humming with adrenaline and shock.

They let Peter’s body burn down to little more than ash. It seems fitting. Allison leans heavily against a nearby tree trunk while she waits, bemoaning the fact that she hasn’t slept in forty-eight hours. Lydia scoffs and declares the night a success based solely on the fact that her outfit has remained remarkably intact and no one needs stitches this time.

Stiles massages the forming bruises on his neck and doesn’t argue with her. They still don’t know if they were right about what Peter was after, but hopefully it won’t matter now that he’s gone.

Derek calls Laura to let her know what’s happened and promises he’ll catch a flight back to her in the next couple days. Otherwise, he doesn’t say a word; just gets into Stiles’ jeep to head home with him like there was never a question about it.

Stiles manages to keep his mouth shut all the way from the preserve to his bedroom, and then rounds on Derek with confusion the moment the door shuts behind them. “I didn’t realize my floor was a better option than a room at the Hilton downtown. Better protected from supernatural creepers, sure, but Peter’s dead now, so I thought you’d–“

The rest of his sentence gets lost in the firm press of Derek’s lips against his own.

A startled noise escapes Stiles that he’d feel embarrassed about if his brain wasn’t otherwise engaged. Derek’s lips are insistent, one of his hands clutching Stiles’ hip and the other cradling the back of Stiles’ head, and there isn’t even any tongue involved but Stiles feels himself melt into it like he was always supposed to end up here. Like a million different versions of himself and a million different versions of Derek, no matter what lives they happened to be leading, no matter what world they inhabited, would always get to this exact kiss.

It’s heady and it’s comfortable and it’s kind of life changing. It’s a lot of things too big for Stiles to even guess at, considering he’s a high school junior who’s never been in a relationship and only recently discovered he might even like other guys.

Derek pulls away slowly but doesn’t go far, and doesn’t remove his hands from where they rest. He closes his eyes and licks his lips like he’s memorizing the taste of Stiles left on them.

“Well you’re definitely not sleeping on my floor now.” Stiles grins.

Derek huffs, but there’s affection behind it. He opens his eyes and they shine in the dim light as they search Stiles’ face. Whatever they find there must be worth it, because Derek smiles back softly and trails the hand cupping the back of Stiles’ head forward along his jawline and then up to brush knuckles lightly across Stiles’ cheek.

“Let me in again?” Derek whispers, and his tone is light, teasing, but the intensity in his gaze is hard to miss.

“Let you close enough to kill me?” Stiles whispers back.

“Close enough that I can’t get away.”

Derek kisses him again, more heated this time, wet and breathless. Stiles arches into it, hands roaming over Derek’s chest and arms, one finally feeling brave enough to grip his ass.

They slow down after a time and settle onto the bed, still fully clothed but content to just exchange soft kisses against whatever skin is available.

Stiles knows he’s going to get shit from the girls for this. And that Derek will be heading back to his sister and away from Beacon Hills within barely a day or two. But he also knows that nothing has ever felt more real and more certain than ghosting his lips across Derek Hale's stubble-lined jaw. Pressing fingertips into Derek’s biceps as if they were lifelines. Pushing into Derek’s space as fervently as Derek pushes into his.

The rest will just have to work itself out. Because Stiles may be many things (hunter, teenager, werewolf magnet, son…) but most of all he’s the kind of person who only lets someone in when, on some level, whether he knows it at the time or not, he doesn’t plan on ever letting them go.  


End file.
